How far down are PC sales in general though?
Is it that more people are buying Linux, or fewer Windows customers are buying new computers at all?
A few years ago, you’d have households with a laptop for every member of the family. Now with tablets and phones doing so much of the heavy lifting, many families are dropping to just 1 Windows or Mac laptop that mostly gathers dust.
My experience is more people having those devices on top of having laptops. I don’t know a single person in Uni that does not have a laptop at all. At last when it comes to writing reports or thesis you just need a proper keyboard device.
Meanwhile gaming and also PC gaming has become much bigger over the years, which keeps driving computer sales.
Believe it or not - but most people actually aren’t college students. Crazy, right?
Anybody in this forum isn’t a typical tech user.
I carry 3 laptops in my backpack (one for 8-5 job, one personal, and one for teaching night classes at the University) along with a foldable phone, a work phone, and e-ink notepad.
Between my 3 laptops, Rog Ally, 2 desktops, and some old laptops I keep around for media devices and network interfaces around the property, I’ve got like 10 Windows machines in my life.
But I also know I’m an outlier.
I used to think that I’d be glued to my PC forever, but ever since getting a foldable I’ve found that I’m no longer reliant on computers anymore for daily tasks. Plus there’s no point in eating up 300w of electricity during the summer (according to my watt meter), just to watch YouTube.
These days the only time I boot my PC is to play a game, search for a job, or make a large purchase. I’m a MilleniaI, so big purchases have to be done on the big computer. The phone is more than adequate for everything else. It’s not the 2010s anymore; phone screens are finally large enough now to replace a PC, and there’s an Android equivalent for almost everything a computer can do.
Programming? Nah. It’s a consumption device, not a creation device.
I’m not a programmer.
Are steamdecks getting counted in this?
I had a discussion about this 1 months ago: https://beehaw.org/post/14768525 And decided not to bring it up again. :D
My argument is, from the eyes of the website you visit, the Steam Deck user would be identified as a desktop user. That’s because the browser you are using (most likely Firefox) and the desktop environment (most likely KDE) in the Desktop mode would be seen as a desktop. In short, yes, I think Steam Deck would be counted, but only if people visit the pages in Desktop mode. So not all Steam Deck users are counted here.
Game mode doesn’t have a browser. I would be interested to find out of the steamdeck sales almost directly correlate to this increase. Not that I am complaining, it’s a great way to use a linux desktop experience. I didn’t really read how these numbers were measured.
The other explanation I could think of is that linux desktop is being adopted widely in India. I don’t think that government’s adopting linux desktop accounts for a significant portion of the machines.
Unknown
Most likely. Steam decks are PCs.
My work laptop is windows and I hardly use it for anything personal. I just unplug the usb-c dock from it and plug it into my steam deck and use it as my desktop. I’ve done everything with it you can do on a computer.
Il feels like every month that passes Linux keeps breaking all time highs! So exciting
Is someone kind enough to post a screenshot of the stats? I can’t access it, because its a known tracking site and get blocked by the plugins.
Okay, I have bit the bullet and made an exception to provide screenshots myself:
Next time try out visiting the page through archive.org
I didn’t think of it, because I always think or archive.org as older pages/versions. The problem is, is it updated to current? It’s a big site, so probably it will be. Good idea, I’ll check that next time through archive.org.
You can always* request a new archive of a website. If you log in (warning: it has to load google code at least when registering) you can also request a screenshot (which I don’t know how you find later on, but right after you get a link) and recursive archiving with a depth of 1.
Interactive elements remain interactive nowadays, but it has limitations.In some cases archive.today is worth a try too. It has workarounds for e.g. facebook, or at least in the past it had a fake account to be able to save facebook content.
But this one loads whatever code from yandex, so if that’s problematic for you be sure to block it. uMatrix is best for that task, probably uBO can do it too, the Firefox version I mean.These sites are basically my “remote browser”, and often it’ll be even useful for others that I requested an archive. Quite often I’m requesting the first one.
* mostly, but you can’t if the site was very recently archived, like in 30 minutes. Then there are some sites that are blacklisted for some reason but not much.
Why is it OS X but Windows doesn’t specify which number?
They are referring to macOS here
Hmm is this really happening so fast? It’s a little hard to believe.
I suspect it’s a bump due to Windows Recall. I know I fully switched because of it after 25 years of off and on the Linux Desktop. And I will not be going back.
I suspect it’s a bump due to Windows Recall.
I don’t believe it that much. It may just be the Steam Deck’s financial success. But everything is possible.
100% switched because of Recall. Been a Linux user on and off for 20 years, windows was my daily driver for the past 5 or so (windows 10 was OK in my mind). Once Recall was announced, I bounced back to Linux. Having Steam popularize gaming on Linux has helped a ton
Maybe not, but, anecdotally, I know of a number of people who have made the switch because of Recall. Steam Deck surely adds to it, but people who have the choice to stop using Windows seem to be doing so.
Maybe not, but, anecdotally, I know of a number of people who have made the switch because of Recall.
Tbh I don’t get it. Wasn’t this feature only on Copilot+ PCs that almost nobody had? Why did so many switch if it wasn’t even confirmed that it’s coming to regular x86 machines? I always find it extremely weird.
Microsoft showed their hand and for some it was the last straw. It might not come to non-copilot pcs (for now) but they showed users they are OK with turning the OS into spyware.
Imo Windows is not even an OS anymore.
Agreed. It’s mostly an ad delivery platform these days. Can be somewhat OK if you have a DNS based blocker but hard to block built in spyware.
Why did so many switch if it wasn’t even confirmed that it’s coming to regular x86 machines?
Panic.
Or they see the writing on the wall
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GloriousEgroll and Valve have essentially made gaming on Linux as viable as it has ever been. The only issue remaining has to do with stupid anti-cheat software. Thank goodness I don’t play any games that use any of them.
Yes, although it’s not evenly distributed. Much of this rise is due to India doing some heavy lifting - they’re on like 16%, and they’re not exactly a small population.
Most places are in the 1.5-3.5% range.
Even 3.5% is quite a lot imo.
Indeed it is. But this is also calculated based on monthly page views, so it only really covers devices that are used in that month.
There’s a non-trivial amount of Windows users that have a dusty laptop that they only pull out when they need to write a document or fill in a form that they got emailed, and will otherwise do all their computing on their phone.
My guess would be that Mac and Linux have fewer of these types of users? But who knows. I have a couple of Linux devices that I almost never use 🤷♀️
I’ve seen many people having Linux on such devices so idk either.
Yes, things move very fast if you haven’t noticed sugar pie
Sus
That’s what she said
So like 6% if you class ChromeOS as Linux (which it essentially is, just with a proprietary DE)
Then 7% unknown, you’d imagine a disproportionate amount of those would be Linux users, who are more likely to have unusual useragents or things that mess with telemetry. But who knows.
Sorry but Linux is becoming too mainstream for me now. Time to hop on to BSD
Oh no, I feel it already the “I was on Linux before it was cool”
Dragonfly BSD, or else it will still be mainstream :)
Check out mister Mainstream over here. The rest of us snooty OS connoisseurs use Collapse OS.
YEAR OF THE LINUX DESKTOP
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It is kinda crazy. Been using Linux since 2005 or 2006 on my desktop/notebook. I cannot believe we are almost mainstream now.
Now that we do so many things through a browser and WebKit/Blink (which run everywhere) have become the de facto standard browser engines, the OS no longer matters as much as it used to.
im doing my part 💪
switched to arch a week or so ago, absolutely loving it
I’m doing my part
Linux Mint here. Soon to switch to a more “manual” distro.
The only real reason to switch to another distro nowadays is because you want to get updates faster (rolling release [like Arch] vs steady releases) and/or you want the ability to customize the OS more easily. Also, if you wanna be that person that wants to remove SystemD from Linux or have a version controlled OS.
I like mint cause it stays out ofy way for literally everything.
Or if you’re sold on the hype of atomic distros (such as Fedora Kionite)
Or if you’re sold on reproducable OS configuration (Nix)
Or if you simply like the defaults of another distro better and don’t want to have to deviate from standards.
Or…
Nah, there’s still a lot of variety to Linux systems.
I can’t think of time where I needed anything more than Mint for a desktop. It’s been on at least one device in my house since 2010.
Nobody using TempleOS? =(
THE LORD NEEDS NO NETWORKING!!! THE LORD IS THE NETWORK!
Thank you Windows 11!
soon we will reach the magic number companies need to finally consider supporting Linux for once
What is that magic number?
Always 5% higher than it currently is.
Would be interesting to know how much of that the steam deck is
It is not a steam user percentage, but according to the site by user data from web pages, it explicitly mentions search engines and social media. I doubt that the steam deck is extremely significant here.
I’ve been docking mine and using it as my primary pc. The only issue I’ve had is that I was able to play CSGO perfectly, and CS2 don’t do so good.
Yeah, these results are skewed because it’s only desktop Linux, so mobile devices (which I believe the Steam Deck and other portable PCs/gaming devices fall under) aren’t counted, and those primarily run Linux. It seems that the foothold of Linux never was, and probably never will be, the desktop PC.
At this rate the Year Of Linux On The Desktop will be 2033!!!
2033!!! = At least 16
Call me naive, I know I am. But how can Linux be a moderated product to sell for desktop? I know phones run Linux, and many other products like streaming pucks run Linux (or is called unix?), but what would it take for an operating linux system to be centralized into a package to toss into a lenova laptop you’re staring at in best buy?
One way to do it is for each company to develop their own flavor to ship with their laptop, in much the same way phone manufacturers just modify Android and ship it.
As an example, check out System76 and their laptops featuring their Pop!_OS distro, which is very user friendly and stable in my experience.
Some laptop manufacturers (and at least one of the larger ones) already offer Linux (Ubuntu) as a pre-installed OS. I suspect this will become more common if/when Linux becomes more popular as a mainstream desktop OS. Most likely it will still be 1 or 2 pre-selected distros though even then.
That’s really cool I didn’t know that was an option already. How does Ubuntu and windows compare for operating system support if I have a problem with the laptop? Is the manufacturer liable for the smooth running of the operating system? Or is the owner of the operating system liable?
It’s a good question but I honestly have no idea how that works even today with windows actually because I have not owned a laptop in 15 years. In my mind, the laptop manufacturer has to guarantee compatibility with any OS it provides but even then, some support from the OS side may be needed. The best way to handle that would be if the manufacturer started contributing to the Linux kernel and provide full driver support because then everybody wins in the long run.
It’s a tough sell because there is no monetary incentive to get Linux on laptops and desktops. Dell has a few computers that ship with Ubuntu, and Lenovo with Fedora, and there’s System76. The problem is that the big manufacturers (namely Dell) get push-back from Microsoft if they start to sell other OSes with their products, so they no longer have 100% domination. Microsoft will say “Oh you’re selling a few products that come with Linux? Well, we won’t offer you the ability to sell Windows anymore…” which would obviously be a huge impact to their business. They have gotten around this, but their offerings are still really slim. The market just isn’t there compared to Windows based computers. Shelf space is expensive so they go with what sells: Windows based products.
Is it because Microsoft is the big dog with money and Linux is no dog because there is no company backing Linux? Windows sells solely because Windows can push the product?
Would it be benificial (albeit this will be extremely frowned upon by this community I believe) for a Linux distro to be backed and monetized via a corporation with a legal team to help push a Linux product on the shelves? In the short run it’s a bad idea, but in the long run it’ll familiarize the public, and push software developers for compatability. The incentive being that there’s money now involved and it won’t be a project for people.
Because right now to use Linux for the majority of user case operations you’d need at least computer science 101 to start installing a distro, partitions, manual software installation, to get running. Or am I wrong on this part?
There are a couple of OEMs like System76 and Starlabs that sell laptops with Linux on them, provide tech support for customers and so on.
And no, installing most distros aren’t hard. You just click the buttons to proceed and fill out the username and password box, select your time zone and select your wi-fi network if you’re using wifi.
You can do manual partitioning but why would you if you don’t know what you’re doing?
Installing software in the GUI is as easy as installing software from the Microsoft Store. Just search or look around and when you see something you want, just click the Install button.
